Story at-a-glance

The most read articles of last year covered topics such as the health hazards of grains, including whole grains—and especially genetically engineered crops; the unsavory and little-known practice of coating fresh produce with plastic substances to increase shelf life; and the nutritional differences between various types of eggs

If you take oral vitamin D, it’s critical to take the right kind (D3 as opposed to D2), and to take vitamin K2 along with it

Diet can powerfully dictate whether you’re healthy or sick, and can be a powerful cancer deterrent. Traditionally fermented foods, such as fermented vegetables, have shown to be of particular importance for optimal health

Cell phones and root canals are perhaps two of the least well-known risk factors in chronic and potentially lethal disease

Welcome to a new year! If 2013 is anything like 2012, we’re in for a wealth of valuable breakthroughs that can help you and your family live healthier, happier, and longer lives.

We discussed many downright revolutionary topics during this past year, from the remarkable health benefits of high intensity interval training, to shocking new evidence of harm from consuming genetically engineered foods, to the avalanche of rapidly-mounting evidence supporting vitamin D and probiotics for optimal health — both physical and mental — and much more.

In case you missed any of our most engrossing headliners, here’s a list of the Top 10 most viewed articles from 2012.

Grains contain anti-nutrients and lectins that can damage your gut, and humans did not historically consume them until relatively recently. We’re often told whole grains are healthy, but the high-fiber bran portion of the grain — the part that makes a whole grain — actually contains many of the anti-nutrients.

There’s a sizeable body of scientific evidence showing that grains, as well as legumes, can cause leaky gut and associated symptoms. Eliminating grains (and sugars) from your diet, while introducing traditionally fermented foods, can help prevent leaky gut as well as other health conditions.

– It’s popular, controversial, and now a breaking story from France proves it to be a cancer trigger. (Even though its backers still say it’s fine.) If this food can give healthy rats cancer, why would you want to bring that risk on yourself?

A two-year long French feeding study designed to evaluate the long-term health effects of a genetically engineered (GE) corn found that rats fed Monsanto’s maize developed massive breast tumors, kidney and liver damage, and other serious health problems. The major onslaught of diseases set in during the 13th month. Rats only live a few years while humans live around 80 years, so naturally we will notice these effects in animals long before we see them in humans.

The gigantic human lab experiment is only about 10 years old, so we are likely decades away from tabulating the human casualties. This is some of the strongest evidence to date that we need to exercise the precautionary principle ASAP and avoid these foods.

Female rats that ate genetically engineered corn died 2-3 times more than controls, and more rapidly, while the male GE-fed rats had tumors that occurred up to a year-and-a-half earlier than rats not fed GE corn. I believe it is crucial that we implement the precautionary principle as rapidly as possible as this study confirms it is difficult to predict precisely what GE foods might do to the youths of today, as many are eating a fair amount of GE ingredients practically from day one.

– They may contain hidden ingredients that have been the source of several outbreaks of food poisoning in recent years. Here’s the best way to ensure you avoid eating this "rubbery" substance that could poison you…

Most people are well aware that fresh conventionally-grown produce is more or less contaminated with pesticides. Less known is the now-common practice of coating fresh fruits and vegetables — including organic varieties — with edible plastic coatings to increase shelf life.

So-called modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) involves controlling or modifying the atmosphere surrounding the product to slow spoilage. This can be accomplished by coating the food with an edible film. Four basic materials used for edible films are lipids, resins, polysaccharides and proteins, to which a variety of antimicrobials, plasticizers and texturizers are added. These types of coatings present several potential health hazards, the most severe of which is the potential to promote the growth of foodborne pathogens if misapplied.

– Free range eggs may be an ideal food, being one of the least expensive and best proteins you can eat. But cook them like this and it’ll oxidize the cholesterol in the yolk, which could cause damage to your body and be problematic if you have high cholesterol.

Eggs generally come from one of two sources: confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s), where the hens are typically kept caged indoors, or smaller farms where the hens are not confined but rather allowed to pasture freely. Hens’ natural diet consists of seeds, green plants, insects, and worms. CAFO birds are primarily fed a diet of corn and soy-based feed; most of which is genetically engineered.

The difference in diet makes the eggs they produce vastly different nutritionally.

You can tell the eggs are free range by the color of the egg yolk. Foraged hens produce eggs with bright orange yolks. Dull, pale yellow yolks are a sure sign you’re getting eggs form caged hens that are not allowed to forage for their natural diet. Free range eggs are truly an ideal food; it’s not only one of best proteins you can get, it’s also one of the least expensive. They’re best eaten raw, or soft-boiled. Scrambled eggs are the most damaged, and will not provide the same health benefits as raw or partially cooked eggs.

CAFO versus Free-Range Egg Production

Conventional egg-production agriculture (also known as confined animal feeding operation or CAFO) raises hens indoors and in cages. This has raised concerns about animal welfare, environmental damage, and nutritional impacts.

Egg-laying hens confined to cages do not have space to move or stretch, and they show more fearful behavior and become prone to skeletal problems. Large numbers of animals confined in small spaces also pollute the air, water and soil with the vast amounts of manure they produce.

Definition of True Free-Range Eggs

Free-range, egg-producing hens must be given access to the outdoors, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations. However, many large commercial egg producers get away with giving their hens access to a tiny, covered outdoor area while still giving the hens conventional feed. The feed is a crucial component, as the main ingredients of commercially raised hens’ diets are genetically engineered (GE) soy and corn. Commercial eggs, even if they state "free-range" on their label, will typically fall into this category.

True free-range eggs are from hens that range freely outdoors on a pasture where they can forage for their natural diet, which includes seeds, green plants, insects, and worms. Typically, you will find these eggs at a local farm or farmers market.

Nutritional Facts

In addition to being better from an environmental perspective, free-range eggs are also nutritionally superior, as demonstrated in Mother Earth News’ 2007 egg testing project. Compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:

1/3 less cholesterol 2/3 more vitamin A 3 times more vitamin E

1/4 less saturated fat 2 times more omega-3 fats 7 times more beta carotene

Eggs: An Ideal Source of Protein

Free range eggs are truly an ideal food; it’s not only one of best proteins you can get, it’s also one of the least expensive. And nearly everyone can tolerate eating them regularly. They’re at their very best if eaten raw. But in order to safely eat them raw, they MUST be organic and free range. CAFO produced eggs are typically not safe to eat raw due to the unsanitary conditions the hens are kept in and far higher likelihood that the hens are infected with pathogenic organisms.

The Best Way to Eat Your Eggs

The way you cook your eggs can destroy the nutrients. The closer to its raw state the egg is, the better, so ideally, you’ll want to eat them raw or soft boiled. The egg white is typically what causes most of the objections to the texture of raw egg, so feel free to throw away the egg white, or simply blend the whole raw egg into a smoothie. Personally, I eat just the raw egg yolk—four every morning, purchased from a local farmer.

Personally, I remove the whites because it’s just too much protein for my challenged kidneys which were damaged years ago from improperly removed amalgam fillings. If you have normal kidney function that eating the whole egg raw is fine. Consuming raw egg whites tends to only be a problem if you avoid the yolks which have biotin that the avidin in raw egg whites removes.

The Worst Way to Eat Your Eggs

Scrambling your eggs is one of the worst ways to eat eggs as it oxidizes the cholesterol in the yolk. If you have high cholesterol this may be problematic, as the oxidized cholesterol may cause damage in your body. Best to avoid scrambled eggs like the plague, probably better for most to fast than to eat them.

No, Eggs Won’t Harm Your Heart

Many mistakenly believe eggs are bad for your heart due to their cholesterol content. This is a serious misconception, as your body actually needs cholesterol, and artificially driving your cholesterol levels down is likely doing far more harm than good. Every cell in your body needs cholesterol. It helps to produce cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps in the formation of memories and is vital for your neurological function. In other words, dietary cholesterol is your friend, not your enemy.

Where to Find Free-Range Eggs

Your best source for fresh eggs is a local farmer that allows his hens to forage freely outdoors. You can tell the eggs are free range by the color of the egg yolk. Foraged hens produce eggs with bright orange yolks. Dull, pale yellow yolks are a sure sign you’re getting eggs form caged hens that are not allowed to forage for their natural diet.

CAFO versus Free-Range Egg Production

Conventional egg-production agriculture (also known as confined animal feeding operation or CAFO) raises hens indoors and in cages. This has raised concerns about animal welfare, environmental damage, and nutritional impacts.

Egg-laying hens confined to cages do not have space to move or stretch, and they show more fearful behavior and become prone to skeletal problems. Large numbers of animals confined in small spaces also pollute the air, water and soil with the vast amounts of manure they produce.

Conventional egg-production agriculture (also known as confined animal feeding operation or CAFO) raises hens indoors and in cages. This has raised concerns about animal welfare, environmental damage, and nutritional impacts.

Egg-laying hens confined to cages do not have space to move or stretch, and they show more fearful behavior and become prone to skeletal problems. Large numbers of animals confined in small spaces also pollute the air, water and soil with the vast amounts of manure they produce.

– You may be innocently making this mistake – sometimes with your doctor’s blessing. It can mean the difference between a 6% lower mortality risk and a 2% higher risk.

Optimizing your vitamin D levels may be one of the most important steps you can take in support of your long-term health, but it’s critical to understand the differences between the two types of vitamin D available in supplement form.

A meta-analysis of 50 trials looking at mortality rates for "doctor recommended" synthetic vitamin D2 supplements versus natural vitamin D3 shows a six percent risk reduction among those who used D3, compared to a two percent increased risk among those who used D2. Research has also shown that vitamin D3 is approximately 87 percent more potent in raising and maintaining vitamin D concentrations and produces 2- to 3-fold greater storage of vitamin D than does D2. D3 is also converted into its active form 500 percent faster.

Plant-based food sources that contain vitamin D provide vitamin D2. Only animal-based food sources, such as fish, egg yolk, and raw milk, contain D3. Keep in mind that the IDEAL way to optimize your vitamin D levels is by exposing large amounts of skin to sunlight or a safe tanning bed, but if you choose to use an oral supplement, make sure you’re taking vitamin D3.

Also be aware that if you take high doses of supplemental vitamin D, you also need to make sure you’re getting enough vitamin K2, a

s these two nutrients work in tandem. Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. While the ideal or optimal ratios between vitamin D and vitamin K2 have yet to be elucidated, Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue, author of Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life, suggests that for every 1,000 IU’s of vitamin D you take, you may benefit from about 100 micrograms of K2, and perhaps as much as 150-200 micrograms (mcg). The latest vitamin D dosing recommendations, which call for about 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 per day if you’re an adult, means you’d need in the neighborhood of 800 to 1,000 micrograms (0.8 to 1 milligram/mg) of vitamin K2.

That said, the most important factor is not the dosage but rather your vitamin D serum level, which should ideally be between 50-70 ng/ml. When taking an oral vitamin D supplement, you should take enough to reach and maintain this therapeutic level.

– Instead of a growth hormone spurt, you get a Cortisol spurt – reversing all your effort. Plus, it decreases your insulin sensitivity, thus increasing your flab. If that’s not bad enough, it shrinks your muscle and hypes up aging. Don’t let your valuable time and energy go to waste like that…

Dr. Doug McGuff, M.D., an emergency room physician, is also an expert in one of my passions of exercise, namely high-intensity interval training. He’s a proponent of high-intensity interval training using weights as opposed to cardio equipment, which can achieve many of the same results.

High-intensity exercise, which engage your fast-twitch muscle fibers, is required if you want an effective aerobic workout, and can cut your workout time from an hour on the treadmill down to as little as 12-15 minutes.

Your fast-twitch fibers are largely glycolytic and store a lot of glucose. When these muscles are recruited, it creates the stimulus needed to grow muscle. At the same time, it enlarges the glucose storage reservoir in the muscle, which enhances your insulin sensitivity. Long, slow, distance-type of exercise can actually cause your intermediate and fast-twitch fibers to begin to atrophy. Aside from losing muscle mass, this also promotes onset of loss of insulin sensitivity. Overall, conventional cardio has repeatedly been shown to be one of the least effective forms of exercise.

– Eating these four foods FEEDS cancer cells… Deny it by refusing to supply it these cancer-promoting foods. Then layer these three supplements, which each individually slash your cancer risk at least 50%. Combining these strategies could get your risk to near zero – what’s not to like about that?

In this interview, Dr. Christine Horner, a board certified general- and plastic surgeon, shared her extensive knowledge about breast cancer — its causes and its cures, and the pro’s and con’s of various screening methods. There are many all-natural cancer-prevention strategies, and research shows that most of them can cut your risk in half! Consequently, by implementing multiple strategies, you can virtually eliminate your risk of cancer as well as other chronic disease.

Your diet is the one of the best ways to either feed or prevent cancer. Processed foods, soft drinks, red meat from CAFO-raised animals, trans fats, all forms of sugar, and any food containing or contaminated with xenoestrogens promote cancer growth. Meanwhile, plant foods, particularly cruciferous vegetables and flax seed as well as many herbs and spices, are cancer-preventive. Healthy fats of particular importance for cancer prevention are omega-3 and omega-9, which effectively slow down tumor growth in estrogen-sensitive cancers such as breast-, prostate- and colon cancers.

– The importance of sending correct messages and feeding this organ with vitality-promoting foods cannot be overstated, it’s so profound. Yet for most people this balance is dramatically skewed – negatively. Here’s how to reverse course and see a dramatic jump in your health starting today…

The importance of your gut flora and its influence on your health cannot be overstated. It’s truly profound. Your gut serves as your second brain, and even produces more serotonin — known to have a beneficial influence on your mood — than your brain does. It is also home to countless bacteria, both good and bad. These bacteria outnumber the cells in your body by at least 10 to one, and maintaining the ideal balance of good and bad bacteria forms the foundation for good health — physical, mental and emotional.

Most disease originates in your digestive system. This includes both physical and mental disease. Once you heal and seal your gut lining, and make your digestive system work properly again, disease symptoms will typically resolve.

The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (as well as Gut and Physiology Syndrome — both referred to as GAPS) Nutritional Program, created by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, a Russian-trained neurologist with a full-time medical practice in the UK, is designed to restore the integrity of your gut lining by providing your body with the necessary building blocks needed for healthy enterocyte reproduction, and restoring balance to your gut flora.

Dr. McBride has made the important connection between damaged gut flora in women and developmental problems in their children, especially autism. These GAPS children, who are born with damaged gut flora, are also far more prone to vaccine damage. I believe this may be a major driving force behind our skyrocketing autism rates. Fortunately, there’s a solution. Restoring proper gut function to pregnant mothers and their babies is really one of the most profound interventions one could have for having a non-brain-damaged child.

In terms of Gut and Physiology Syndrome, we’re talking about all forms of autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases and conditions, such as:

If you’re suffering from any of these conditions, or virtually any other health challenge, you’d be wise to implement the GAPS program. While Dr. McBride’s book is calledGut and Psychology Syndrome, the nutritional protocol for addressing physiological and psychological conditions is identical.

– If you’re in the habit of tucking your phone in a pocket, or on your belt, heads up – you’ll be appalled when you view this new 2-minute video… Seeing is believing if you still harbor any doubt that cell phones can potentially cause cancer.

The biological impact of your cell phone is not related to its power, which is quite weak, but rather to the erratic nature of its signal and its ability to disrupt resonance and interfere with DNA repair. Serving as an illustrative warning of the potential for your cell phone to cause cancer is the case of a young woman with no other predisposing risk factors for cancer who developed multi-focal breast cancer directly beneath the area of her breast where she’d been tucking her cell phone into her bra. Earlier research has shown that wearing a cell phone on your hip may weaken an area of your pelvis, and cell phone radiation has also been found to affect men’s sperm count, and the quality and motility of their sperm.

As a general rule, you’ll want to avoid carrying your phone anywhere on your body. The most dangerous place to be, in terms of radiation exposure, is within about six inches of the emitting antenna, especially when it is put next to soft tissue such as in your pant or shirt pocket, or worse yet, in a woman’s bra.

– While this German physician made this stunning observation over 40 years of treating terminal cancer patients, it sheds light on cancer. You or a loved one may be affected as this dangerous procedure is done 41,000 times a day in the US. The good news is… there’s a fix.

Do you have a chronic degenerative disease? If so, the root cause of your illness could possibly be traced back to your mouth. Nearly every dentist will tell you getting a root canal is completely safe, despite the fact that scientists have been warning of its dangers for more than 100 years.

During a root canal, there is no way to sterilize your tooth; after the root canal, dangerous bacteria hide out in the tooth and are unreachable with antibiotics. Root-canaled and filled teeth harbor bacteria that can morph into very toxic forms, which then can migrate to other tissues in your body and cause serious medical conditions, including diseases of your heart, kidneys, bones, and brain.

There is no other medical practice that permits leaving a dead body part inside your body, because it triggers your immune system to attack. If you have a diseased tooth, or if you’ve already had a root canal, I highly recommend consulting a biological dentist about have it extracted.

The power or ruling elite have lined your canned goods﻿ with Bisphenol, it’s in appox 85% of your plastic drink bottles and used in 100% of all cash register inks…. Bisphenol is a estrogen mimicking chemical that targets reproductive organs.and causes Cancer… Breast, Prostate, Ovarian, Testicular…

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About Ask Marion

I am a babyboomer and empty nester who savors every moment of my past and believes that it is the responsibility of each of us in my generation and Americans in general to make sure that America is as good or even a better place for future generations as it was for us. So far... we haven't done very well!!
Favorite Quotes:
"The first 50 years are to build and acquire; the second 50 are to leave your legacy";
"Do something that scares you every day!";
"The journey in between what you once were and who you are becoming is where the dance of life really takes place".
At age 62 I find myself fighting inoperable uterine Cancer and thanks to the man upstairs and the prayers from so many people including many of my readers from AskMarion and JustOneMorePet... I'm beating it.
After losing our business because of the economy and factors related to the re-election of President Obama in 2012 followed by 16-mos of job hunting, my architect-trained husband is working as a trucker and has only been home approximately 5-days a month since I was diagnosed, which has made everything more difficult and often lonely... plus funds are tight. Our family medical deductible is 12K per year for two of us; thank you ObamaCare.
But thanks to donations from so many of you, we are making ends meet as I go through treatment while taking care of my father-in-law who is suffering from late stage Alzheimer's and my mother-in-law who suffers from RA and onset dementia as well as hearing loss, for which there are no caretaker funds,
as I continue the fight here online to inform and help restore our amazing country.
And finally I need to thank a core group of family, friends, and readers... all at a distance, who check in with me regularly. Plus, I must thank my furkids who have not left my side through this fight. You can see them at JustOneMorePet.

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